Boston’s Methadone Mile court to end next week

The state is shutting down the Mass and Cass “Community Response Session” courtroom in the South Bay jail complex starting Monday.

“Given the low case volume at the Community Response Session, the Trial Court has made the decision to discontinue the session,” a courts spokeswoman said Friday.

Boston Municipal Court had been holding a special session out of Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins’ offices at the South Bay jail complex near the area known as Mass and Cass or Methadone Mile that’s the epicenter of the area’s opioid crisis.

The session, done in partnership with Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office and the public defenders, was meant to handle arrests made in the area with a focus on giving the arrestees diversion options before getting to arraignment.

The courtroom was only handling a few people a day — and sometimes nobody.

Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Court Roberto Ronquillo Jr. signed an order Friday ending the directives that created the special session in the sheriff’s offices.

The courts said that beginning Monday, the cases that would be heard there “will transition back to their respective divisions.”

“The Boston Municipal court will continue to communicate and collaborate with the City of Boston and state agencies to expand services to those court-involved individuals in need of services in every Division of the Boston Municipal Court,” the courts spokeswoman said.

There have been escalating efforts to break up the encampment that once numbered hundreds of tents in the area, where violence and open-air drug dealing and use was commonplace. The number of tents has decreased significantly over the past several weeks, though issues remain.

This comes as new Mayor Michelle Wu appears to be rethinking the city’s response as to whether tent removal processes will continue.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3HPdhpt